Merry Christmas from Wilno Station Inn

Thanks to all our friends and customers for your patronage in the past year and hope to see you all again in spring.

Tom and Joanne and our staff in 2007: Josh Hayes, Robin Vornweg, Krista Gansterer,Lotte Vornweg, Vanessa Killeen, Lois Losole, Ritzuko Honda and Pete, Provider of fine Pork Products, Christine of La Finca for fresh vegetables, MJ Rice at Riceland Farm for local beef and everyone who brought us goodies from their gardens.

And after a great year we are looking forward to our gala New Years Eve dinner featuring Robert Yeretch.

Then, its time to start closing things down...and anticipating our Jan 15 departure for our favorite Spanish village, Nerja on the Costa del Sol.

And Halinka decided that Santa should dance.

Old friends..Marie (Chippior) Finnerty and Robert Yeretch team up for a tune. Marie's grandmother used to own the house at 13 Sczypior street which is now part of our bed and breakfast....and Robert is the youngest brother of Diane Whitehead who used to own the Wilno General Store...above which, Tom and I lived for five years in our early days in Wilno. And Robert's niece, the dynamic and cheerful Cindy (Lou Who) worked with us in the early days of Wilno Station...No strangers here.

and the next night....another party with another group of dancers...

A lively party, as you can see.

Turkey after turkey...and finally this gigantic creature for a Barry's Bay business staff party...and besides this guy, they had ribs and salmon and still had room for chocolate mousse. It was a great evening with Robert Yeretch entertaining and we moved the tables for dancing and dance they did!!!

and snow....

And more snow.

And then there was snow.

And at the end of November, our annual Poetry in the Cafe afternoon ends with Barney McCaffrey reading "A Wilno Hills Christmas". A goodly crowd attended and we thought also of our poets and writers...Barry Goldie, Peter Ritchie and Lee Lafont who weren't here this year, as they are off in Russia building log houses and hopefully drinking lots of vodka and writing morose verse in the true angst-ridden Russian fashion.

Another "Philosopher's Cafe" hosted by Stan with Honest Frankie and Rev. Ken and Barney as special musical guests. We debated war and peace....an issue of interest in this area as we are so close to CFB Petawawa and we have friends, neighbours and relatives in Afghanistan.

Hunting season, once again in the Ottawa Valley. There were so many deer this year....everyone will have lots of venison in their freezers. The boys on the farm are making venison sausage and burger and we'll be invited out to dinner parties where the speciality of the host is "MVMVML" otherwise known as Madawaska Valley Moose and Venison Meatloaf." Right on, Barry!!

Gwenn and her friends enjoy lunch and some music in the cafe. It's become an annual event!! The singalong is fun!!

We hosted a birthday celebration for some of the Wilno girls....a good party and everyone had fun.

Mr Reiche at the abbatoir said Lulu was the fattest pig he had seen in thirty years. No wonder...she dined all summer on gourmet left overs from our cafe...everything from organic salad to chocolate cheesecake. And we usually threw in a bit of leftover beer for a treat on Friday night. It was a good life and she is now equally appreciated in her incarnation as delicious sausages.

preparing sausage for winter

Neighbour Pete's adventure in pig-raising turned out well and we had a day of sausage making in the kitchen. We borrowed the Zomers family sausage machine and Tom made chorizo and bratwurst and smoked some of them....delicious. We rendered the lard for pies and Pete ended the week with a grand pig roast in the snow at the Jacksons. It was minus 20 that day...but the piggy was delicious.